Yves Saint Laurent museum opens in Paris

Yves Saint Laurent in Paris

Yves Saint Laurent (1936-2008) is remembered as one of the greatest couturiers in the history of fashion. Now two museums chronicling his career will open in October 2017, one in Paris and another one Marrakesh. The Parisian Musée Yves Saint Laurent, located in the building where he spent nearly 30 years designing his collections, opens on October 3.

Yves Saint Laurent museum opens in Paris

A legendary address

The legendary hôtel particulier located at 5 avenue Marceau, in Paris, used to be Yves Saint Laurent's work studio. The building has served as the headquarters of the Fondation Pierre Bergé - Yves Saint Laurent since 2004. The foundation owns over 5,000 pieces of garments, original design sketches and other works by Saint Laurent.

Yves Saint Laurent museum opens in Paris

The highlights of a career

As a genuine pioneer, Saint Laurent was the only designer of his generation to archive his work since establishing his haute couture house. The inaugural show in Paris displays roughly 50 designs, alongside accessories, sketches, photographs and videos.

Yves Saint Laurent museum opens in Paris

Walls of works

Haute couture and ready-to-wear accessories were collected at the same time as the clothes. These included jewelry, scarves, hats, headdresses, gloves, shoes, handbags and flowers. The exhibition features his most emblematic designs, from the tuxedo to the safari jacket, and from the jumpsuit to the trench coat.

Yves Saint Laurent museum opens in Paris

Elaborate sketches

Producing an haute couture collection was a long and complicated process. It began with a sketch, and every step that followed led to the elaboration of further documents allowing the ateliers to create both the prototype and the designs ordered by clients. These sketches feature his collection from Spring/Summer 1962.

Yves Saint Laurent museum opens in Paris

Sketching Le Smoking

The original sketches were made by Saint Laurent and later handed to the chef d'atelier. Saint Laurent, a prolific draftsman, sometimes made hundreds of drawings for a collection. This drawing shows a version of one of his most iconic designs: Le Smoking, the first tuxedo for women, which he created in 1966.

Yves Saint Laurent museum opens in Paris

In dialogue with the arts

The museum visit includes a look at Saint Laurent's deepest inspirations. Many figures haunt his body of work, acting as what Friedrich Nietzsche referred to as "aesthetic phantoms" whom Yves Saint Laurent continually pursued, such as Louis Jouvet, Marcel Proust, Jean Cocteau, Richard Wagner and Henri Matisse. This dress was a tribute to Picasso's costume designs for the ballet "Parade."

Yves Saint Laurent museum opens in Paris

The purity of Mondrian's lines

For its opening exhibition, the museum explores Saint Laurent's dialogue with Pablo Picasso, as well as with painters Piet Mondrian and Vincent Van Gogh. In 1965, Saint Laurent designed six cocktail dresses inspired by the paintings of Piet Mondrian. The couturier once said of the painter, "The masterpiece of the 20th century is a Mondrian."

Yves Saint Laurent museum opens in Paris

Spirit on a desk

The work table that belonged to Saint Laurent since 1962 still bears his personal objects like fabric swatches, embroidery samples and photos, evoking the atmosphere that inspired him during the preparation of a collection. He found inspiration in art, literature, theater and music, as well as in foreign cultures, designing dresses with influences from Africa, Russia, Spain, China and India.

The stereotype of fashion is that it's flighty. Trends may come and go and return again several years or decades later. But in the history of fashion, there are unforgettable figures who remain influential and their designs, eternal. And a huge swath of that past belongs to arguably one of the greatest couturiers who ever lived, Yves Saint Laurent.

One of the most legendary feuds in the history of fashion was between Saint Laurent and another larger-than-life icon, who still lives in the fashion capital today and designs for the legendary French fashion house of Chanel: Karl Lagerfeld.

The volatile relationship between Lagerfeld and Saint Laurent initially started out amicably, as they shared a similar trajectory. The two men were friends in the 1950s as the rising stars of the fashion world.

They both won the International Wool Secretariat Fashion Design Competition in 1954.

Saint Laurent – newly arrived from Oran, Algeria, where he spent his youth – won the first and third prizes for the dress category at only 18 years old.

Designer Karl Lagerfeld in his Parisian studio in 1979

Lagerfeld, 21 years old at the time and from Hamburg, won the prize for the coat category. Their winning designs had been chosen from 6,000 anonymous sketches. From there, Lagerfeld's and Saint Laurent's careers flourished in the City of Light.

There were more obvious similarities: "Both were the only, cherished sons of prosperous, middle-class families. Their fathers were successful businessmen who provided for their families, aspiring wives and bourgeois lifestyles. Both boys were homosexual and aware of their sexual orientation from an early age. They loved to sketch and in particular they loved to sketch dresses. They were both boys from the provinces, dreaming of Paris," wrote fashion journalist Alicia Drake in "The Beautiful Fall: Fashion, Genius and Glorious Excess in 1970s Paris."

Drake's book, published in 2006, famously explored the story of the rivalry between Lagerfeld and Saint Laurent. The volatile relationship between Lagerfeld and Saint Laurent initially started out amicably. As the rising stars of the fashion world, the two men were friends in the 1950s.

Jacques de Bascher, "the shadow dandy"

From friends to rivals

Beyond any professional competition, their personal feud developed because of another man: Jacques de Bascher, Lagerfeld's partner for 18 years until his death in 1989.

The "shadow dandy," as he's called in the 2017 biography written by French journalist Marie Ottavi, "Jacques de Bascher, dandy de l'ombre," had a brief relationship with Yves Saint Laurent. De Basher's involvement with both men resulted in dramatic conflict between the two fashion designers, and ultimately, this blew up into one of fashion's biggest feuds of the '70s.

During most of this decade, Saint Laurent was technically in a relationship with Pierre Bergé, but during that period, de Bascher and Saint Laurent also had an affair. When Bergé discovered these trysts, he blamed Lagerfeld as a catalyst for the decline of Saint Laurent, even though Saint Laurent' substance addictions were already uncontrollable.

"Of course I knew about the affair with Saint Laurent. I had been close friends with Yves for more than 20 years," Lagerfeld said in Ottavi's book, adding, "Pierre (Bergé) smashed that to bits. He said I engineered their liaison to destabilize the house of Saint Laurent."

After Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé broke up in 1976, they remained lifelong friends and business partners

Two museums in tribute to YSL

Today, both designers' names fortunately remain more legendary than their feud.

While Lagerfeld continues to be an indefatigable designer, photographer and artist, Saint Laurent's legacy endures in the fashion designers today who have cited his direct and enormous influence on their work: Tom Ford, Marc Jacobs and Ralph Lauren, to name a few.

As for Pierre Bergé, Saint Laurent's personal and professional partner of many years, he played an instrumental role in establishing two new museums celebrating the career of Saint Laurent: One opens in Marrakesh on October 17, 2017, and another one in Paris on October 3, 2017 at 5 avenue Marceau, where Saint Laurent spent close to 30 years designing his collections from 1974 to 2002.

Co-founder of the Yves Saint Laurent fashion label, Pierre Bergé died on September 8, 2017

However, Pierre Bergé will not be there to experience the opening of his monumental tributes. The former chief executive of YSL recently died, on September 8, at the age of 86.

"I have always said that one must turn memories into projects, and that is what we have done with this Foundation," Bergé said. "In 2017, a new chapter begins with the opening of two Yves Saint Laurent museums, in Paris and Marrakesh. It is the latest twist in a journey that began long ago, when we had no idea how destiny would smile on us."

Indeed, Saint Laurent led a charmed life, gifted early on with the talent of design. For many years before his retirement, he shared a parallel stage (and runway) with Lagerfeld. These chapters of history are over, yet they stay relevant and fresh in the minds and imagination of their fans today.